Always a knit of identity, always distinction, always a breed of life.
To elaborate is no avail, learned and unlearned feel that it is so.
— Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself”
I posted earlier today about the “Virginian” who hijacked a bus in North Carolina and took some of its passengers hostage. The news story was preceded by what was meant to be a gently ironic diatribe about what it means to be a Virginian.
Surprisingly enough, the comment thread on the post became quite serious. One commenter referred to rhetoric that “tends to exclude and divide people”. As far as I am concerned, this is a PC/MC formulation that derogates and demonizes a laudable human characteristic.
A well-functioning community “excludes and divides” by defining itself in a way that distinguishes it from other communities. This is actually a great good. It is what allowed historically vigorous and productive regions, provinces, and nations to function. A stable community, with a sense of place, values, and traditions, is a basic requirement for the psychological maturation of all children into healthy adults.
The destruction of such communities is the single greatest tragedy of modern times. Our cultures have been atomized and homogenized, sometimes quite deliberately, with the intention of destroying any sources of power that might rival the almighty Socialist state.
The destruction has proceeded so far that maintaining a sense of place and taking pride in the superior nature of one’s homeland is now deprecated as exclusion and division, rather than celebrated as self-respect and patriotism.
Preferring one’s own kind to exotic strangers and foreigners is now “racism”. Seeing one’s homeland as better than other countries or regions is despised as “xenophobia”. And so on.
Yet all of these denigrated characteristics are valuable, important, and essential to a strong and vital culture. They are part of what made Western (i.e. European) civilization the greatest in the world.
To eliminate them does not just mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It means throwing out baby, bathwater, bathtub, pipes, and water heater — and then burning down the house.
Our precious culture has been so effectively destroyed that many people find it difficult to grasp the simple facts described above — we are that far gone.
When I was in my late twenties, I recognized my own deep need for tradition and place, so I moved out here to the redneck outback. The venerable forms of traditional Virginia culture — both black and white — are preserved here relatively intact. This area is a remote repository for the recessive genes of our culture.
Such genes may have no special selective advantage right now, but they will come in handy in the near future, when the welfare state collapses and a new system forms. The Snatchers and Pod People (to borrow from Takuan Seiyo) will find their skills and habits useless at that point, and the old virtues will re-emerge from the rubble of the post-modern West.
But none of that is of any use right now. For the time being these sentiments are a lost cause; that’s why I feel compelled to write about them with humor and irony. I realize that I am swimming against the current. At my age, it’s rather futile — nothing that I do within my lifetime will delay the juggernaut of cultural destruction by so much as a nanosecond.
Even so, it’s all worth doing. I love my homeland. I feel the spirits of my ancestors trailing back through the 20th and 19th centuries into the 18th. I know the towns and counties where they lived, died, worked, fought, married, and raised their children.
This is my place; it is like no other. I belong here.
I inhabit the Sovereign Commonwealth of Virginia, the Old Dominion. Many valiant men stood and died on her soil in her hour of need.
Their deaths were not in vain. They and their homeland have not been forgotten, at least not by all of us.
40 comments:
Amen. Well-said.
OS is so grateful to live in his quirky county, populated by eccentrics and fiercely independent types, who love their life and simply wish to be left alone by the Utopians bent on destroying this way of life.
Keep up your good efforts. They are appreciated here.
Come 'round and set a spell, ya heah?
"Racism" is to racism what the sex drive is to rape.
No one would deny the sex drive is a good thing ; we wouldn't be here for lack of it.
"Racism" is similarly a Good Thing, and necessary for life to exist.
We happen to have a terrible problem with quotation marks and choice of words.
Well said, I am a Missourian from a hillbilly family and am proud of it, we and others like us are the descendants of the frontiersmen. We are what L'Amour called the old breed, the self proclaimed elite would foul themselves is they knew what we think about them.
The issue, as I said, is that many use the same reasoning to discriminate. That is an unfortunate fact. And that is wrong.
It's not about being PC/MC either. Nor is it about refusing to stand up for values. Just like at the UN, the abusers speak in terms of human rights also.
As such, I raised the caution that each person gets to choose who he/she is, though I realize than some will not accept no matter what.
The need to protect communities often serves as a rationale for people to abuse others, even for genocide.
All I wanted to impress is that it's a two way street, not a zero sum game.
oldschool, discrimination is a vital tool of any civilization. A civilization that doesn't do that doesn't exist.
Sorry, don't see it that way, or as something to celebrate.
People have the right to their culture, but not to discriminate without a compelling reason. It has nothing to do with preserving civilization.
People have the right to their culture, but not to discriminate without a compelling reason. === oldschool
What is culture except discrimination, of what reads, how they talk, what they discuss, the music that they like and dont like, the customs that they choose to participate in and not to participate in, the morals, values and principles that they choose to hold, and discrimination against those which they dont, also defining what is good and what is evil, that is discrimination.
There is a compelling reason to discriminate.
For example, the discrimination of Israeli Jews in favor of Jewish Immigration and denying the Right of Return.
The same conundrum is played out in less dramatic fashion with regards to tens of millions of Foreign Latinos breaking our immigration laws. Then being outraged when Arizona has the temerity to pass laws which make illegal the kind of seperatist and anti-assimilationist rhetoric that dominates Latino and Chicano Studies Departments.
Jews have the right to exist. So do Africans. So do White Europeans.
The problem is that every other group in the US is encouraged to define themselves and promote their interests, however as soon as WhiteEuros see how beneficial that is to groups, and they wish to follow the successful model....then all the ad homs come out and nobody is talking about celebrating Diversity and encouraging their WhiteEuro brothers to hold hands around the Kum-ba-ya fire.
Celebrating Diversity is code word for discrimination against the WhiteEuro, Christian, Male...whose interests, culture, and individuals rights are to be subjugated to everyone elses.
That ruse is up.
So when is discrimination objectionable?
Sorry, but white Christian males have had it pretty good in our society, last I checked. Let's get real. Would you rather be white or black in America?
In my view, you have to look at it cumulatively. There is a reason why laws against discrimination were enacted, and an international treaty was adopted. It was not because people just wanted to protect their cultures, but that they often did so by mistreating others.
I am somewhat perplexed at the justifications offered. Yes, people have the right to self-determination, but not at the expense of other groups, particularly minorities.
So tell me where you draw the line.
And what should be done if people use the same rational you offer, but for illiberal purposes. Is that not what Islamists do, too? You seem to be condoning such behavior. Or is it only permissible for your group, and for the rest it's a ruse?
Redneck Outback is somewhat of a misnomer, given that Baron and Dymphna live there. Moreover, Virginia came as close to having a European aristocracy as any place in the Anglo diaspora has, and it’s in its aristocrats (e.g. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Patton) that its glory lies.
Pace oldschool26, people have a natural right to discriminate, or else they die out. Even bacteria and molecules discriminate, or else they are wiped out. There is only the issue of the wisdom in the discrimination. “Diversity” is like Tabasco – add a ¼ spoonful to your grits, and you have a more lively and interesting dish. Add half a cup of the hot sauce, and you need an ambulance. Left to its own devices, the free market rewards communities the practice wise discrimination by accepting a limited number of useful Mercurian minorities. It punishes inbred societies that reject all outside blood and influence. The disaster comes when you have a toxic ruling elite, imposing social engineering through its coercive powers.
Escape,
You can disparage the Left all you like. That is not my game, which I find each side plays too much.
You did not answer the questions. Where do you draw the line and believe that discrimination is wrong? Better to deal with the issues, rather than dump on Lefties. They can be misguided, but so can their adversaries.
Like I said, Islamists use the same rationale as you to cleanse. Is that okay?
Yes old school - of course "There is a reason why laws against discrimination were enacted, and an international treaty was adopted" - this is all part of the progessivist/marxist project to deconstruct 'capitalist' bourgeois society, because it stood in the way of worldwide socialism. Therefore it was deemed necessary to mess up, undermine, divide and conquer proud and happy nations, in order to destroy what people loved and valued, and to make the west believe it was so evil and beyond repair that it had to learn to humble itself and take instruction from third world sages
Discrimination simply is a human right - as long as the rule of law is upheld and civil rights are respected society will work. What people think, say or feel - who they consort with and what they do in their own house, business, school or community is their business, and no one else's
Furthermore: good intentions tend to have unexpected outcomes and unforeseen consequences. Or did expect that the 'anti-discrimination laws' would make America into a pc and racialist country? We should have stopped at equal rights..
The situation is dire, and about to get much worse, and an end to the madness is nowhere in sight.
Better to deal with the issues -- oldschool
Cant deal with the issues, as the Left and their gaggle of identity politics groups are preventing that.
Thus we will have to play out the zeitgeist that the Left created and continues to promote.
If I was you, I would start criticizing the Left. But you dont play that game...so you will be supporting the zeitgeist and the inevitable serious conflict that is looming.
That is on your conscious, not mine.
Takuan Seiyo: “Diversity” is like Tabasco – add a ¼ spoonful to your grits, and you have a more lively and interesting dish. Add half a cup of the hot sauce, and you need an ambulance.
We're not worthy!
[/Wayne's World]
Sorry, but white Christian males have had it pretty good in our society, last I checked. Let's get real. Would you rather be white or black in America?
hahahahahaha......oh my.
Poor, poor oldschool.
When reality meets his/her mindset, a happening I suspect is not too far off, it sure ain't gonna be pretty.
oldschool26: Would you rather be white or black in America?
Why it's good to be white.
(WARNING: NSFW)
Though I read, I didn't find much qualified discrimination. I too believe that we discriminate by necessity and we shouldn't have too much trouble enumerating an agreed set of appropriate discrimination; Prior to that, can we agree to use the phrase inappropriate discrimination when appropriate?
Hesperado, you know better than that! Cut it out.
-----
Hesperado said...
oldschool26,
1) It would be physically, ontologically, humanly impossible for any of us -- heirs to defeating Hitler in WW2 (FC excluded) -- to be "as bad" as Muslims.
2) What is wrong with opposing, mightily, a global movement that believes in outrageously anti-liberal, anti-humanist tenets?
3) What [in tarnation] is wrong with you?
Escape Velocity,
Mind your language.
-------
Oldskool,
I cant even argue against open borders immigration policy without being demonized as a white supremacist, racist, xenophobic KKKer.
Its not going to stop, immigration or the demonization.
We are headed to the inevitable. And rest assured that I will stand with my tribes, when the [excrement] hits the fan. That doesnt make me a racist or a xenophobe, it makes me a survivor...the ultimate in discrimination...I choose to live...not die...that my culture lives and does not perish.
-------
EscapeVelocity said...
And what should be done if people use the same rational you offer
They do, its called New Left Identity Politics, which demonize others, promote special preferences and priveleges for their groups, and seek to legislate discrimination against others to their benefit.
Time to wake up and smell the the stinking pile of Leftwing [nonsense], I say.
That is the zeitgeist, not of my making. Its not going to change.
So time to start playing, because by not playing, we are doomed to being the loser.
Here is a clue. The Left and its gaggle of Identity Politics groups arent going to stop playing. And eventually the WhiteEuros and Christians are going to rejoin the game.
Its an inevitability.
Very short sighted by the minority groups, Id say. Ive even pointed this out to them and they just yell more demonization of me and mine, as a response.
Shrugs...better prepare yourself for the coming battle, I say. The WhiteEuro Christian isnt going to roll over and die so easily.
The Jews in Israel arent either.
-------
Notice to everyone:
I'm busy live-blogging Luton now, so I won't have time do redo any more obscene comments.
BE WARNED: I will simply delete them. I advise you to save a copy of each one, if you're determined to keep cussing.
Boy, this old school gal is a dreary mind numbing read. Who would thought sophomore high school cheer leaders would have the time to read and post on this blog.
"Diversity" run amok...
In Virginia.
Virginia Military Institute Sells Out to the Jihad
FWIW
I am not a gal.
Baron,
I hear you, and I agree with you that it has become too toxic to discuss these issues in many respects.
I understood much of what you said in the context you presented.
However, look at the responses to what I was saying, which evidences why it is a slippery slope. There are too many people over the globe that take what may be legitimate and use it against others, starting with discrimination and ending in international crimes.
I do not have the answers, but I know it starts to get better when we treat others with dignity and respect how they classify themselves. To label people is wrong in my book.
Anyway, I enjoy the site and agree with most of its premise, even if I differ in some approaches and particulars.
One last thing. I spend much more time among the Leftists so reviled here, arguing with many about these issues. Probably more than most here. So I get it from both sides.
It's ironic how much each side emulates the other in tone and in the inability to hear what others say.
In other words, agree with me or be damned!!
Of course, there are those with whom one can discuss without disintegration into labeling and demonization. That is the avenue I seek and will continue to seek. But I wanted to point out that there are many who sound not much different than my cohorts on the Left.
Sorry Baron; I rarely get intemperate on these discussion threads, but some memes are hot buttons for me, and the particular one oldschool employed (to paraphrase) -- "If we take measures to defend ourselves from Muslims we will become as bad as them" -- is a red herring so monstrous it arouses nausea and fury.
Now we see another PC MC truism from the Bic pen of oldschool:
"To label people is wrong in my book."
There are so many things wrong bundled in an incoherently intricate mush in that deceptively simple phrase, it would, as William Buckley once chided Phil Donahue, "take a team of philosophers to unscramble".
When we are dealing with a certain type of mind deformed by PC MC, we are dealing not with stupidity, nor with intelligent reason, but a strange hybrid of stupidity and intelligence I call Quantum Ignorance.
Continued:
As anyone who has tried to reason with any number and type of the PC MC person would know all too well -- and has experienced the frustration with their stubbornness that often infuriates when it doesn't clench you by the viscera with a devastating depression -- there is something more complex going on here than a mere ignorance of the data of Islam.
Time and time again, we have experienced the depressing fact that the mere presentation of the sordid data of Islam is not enough to make the scales fall from the eyes of individuals whose hearts and minds have become deformed by PC MC. For them, PC MC provides a complex mechanism, a paradigm, which receives the data of Islam, but does not process it rationally: on the contrary, it processes such data according to its own logic -- a complex logic all revolving around the twin dogmas of Reverse Racism:
1) we are bad;
2) they are good.
We are bad, according to this logic, because we have had a wicked propensity to think we are better than the Other, and this has led us to commit uniquely horrible crimes against these poor Noble Savage Others. We are thus perpetually, eternally obliged to make it up to the Ethnic Other, by forever abasing ourselves, and forever protecting and praising Them.
(A deliciously perverse twist to this incoherent feeling the PC MC person nurses in his brain may be put thusly:
"We are worse because we are better."
This became startlingly clear to me a few years ago when I analyzed the proto-PC MC thought of the great essayist and philosopher, Montaigne.)
So: Along comes one particular Ethnic Other -- Muslims -- who themselves have a history of imperialism far worse than the imperialism of the West, who have massacred far more peoples than the West has, who have horribly abused peoples and their cultures (mostly Third World peoples and cultures, btw) far worse than the West has, who have cultivated a culture of dogmatic anti-liberal and anti-humanist fanaticism far worse than the worst right-wing evangelical Christian one could adduce. This complex datum -- of a Brown People who are imperialistic racist intolerant fanatical genocidal haters -- cannot be computed by the PC MC mechanism. Were it to begin to compute in the brain of a PC MC person, that person's brain would explode. It is impossible for a Brown People to be bad. It is doubly impossible for the white West to be threatened by this Brown People. It is triply impossible that this Brown People are, in fact, the New Hitler threatening a New Holocaust (if not actually perpetrating it in various parts of the Third World already): all these facts go so fundamentally and diametrically against the PC MC paradigm, it would shatter the Box in which people like oldschool live. Instead, they dig into their Box and continue to worry about what the evil white West is going to do to the poor Brown Muslim victims.
And by the way, oldschool may not be a liberal or a Leftist. Of course, Leftists remain a significant piece of the puzzle of the problem, but the magnitude of the problem consists in the unfortunate fact that the majority of conservatives and centrists (as well as innumerable people who are more or less apolitical) are about as blithely addled with the warm and fuzzy disease of Politically Correct Multi-Culturalism (PC MC) as are those one could peg as "liberals".
This became disturbingly clear to me, as a disquieting epiphany many years ago, when I saw the arch-conservative hawk, Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, point his finger at Charlie Rose who was interviewing him at the time, and pronounce this sweeping generalization: "The vast majority of Muslims are moderates!". I realized then and there that the problem of the problem is not merely a "Leftist" phenomenon.
Baron,
Great post. I have been looking for a place in America to resettle which retains the kind of values you are talking about. (We have family in NC, and parts of VA would be good, or WV; we have also been considering non-coastal Western states.)
Hesperado,
Excellent comment. Your diagnosis is similar to mine. I have long maintained that the reason the liberals and leftists are so happy to assist Islam in its attempts to destroy their societies is that they cannot imagine that any people so benighted and ignorant and backward as Muslims could every achieve enough power to seriously threaten them, so they don't see any problems with such a tactical alliance. Of course, if the Muslims ever do gain control of their societies the condescending liberals and leftists will be the first ones killed; but I have to admit that taking a VERY long view they are correct that the benighted Muslims cannot ultimately defeat their societies. What they fail to appreciate is how disastrous the destruction they can nonetheless wreak will be, and how the eventual triumph of Western civilization over Islam will depend exactly on those values and virtues (the ones Baron writes about in this post) that they, the liberals and leftists, hate the most and hope the Muslims will help destroy. They imagine they will be the ones left standing at the end, but they will find themselves at best roughly shunted aside and at worst exiled and imprisoned as disloyal and traitorous.
I like your post on Quantum Ignorance, though I think the situation is somewhat simpler than you describe. As Derbyshire says, "political stupidity is uncorrelated with other forms of stupidity" -- what it ultimately comes down to is a very widespread ignorance of basic logic and lack of commitment to internal consistency. I have found that ANYONE who really understands and respects logic and is not psychologically defective is persuadable (by me, about Islam and leftism and so on); unfortunately even quite intelligent people do not understand or respect logic.
It's ironic how much each side emulates the other in tone and in the inability to hear what others say.
I am a reactionary, as the Leftists say.
My reaction is equal and opposite to their hostility and derision.
The problem can be fixed, starting with the Left. However they arent going to be doint that.
Just as Muslims arent going to change their dogma to suit Westerners.
IMO, Subverting and Undermining Western Civilization in civil tones, on the University Campus and in the Identity Group Studies Departments is worse. Putting out papers that demonize and indict WhiteEuros, Christians, and Males in polite tones, is still a hostile act. Just because you didnt call them Crackers, doesnt mean you arent setting up the genocide/cultuarlcide.
Someone on the TV was talking the other day about bipartisanship, or working to find common ground and moving forward on that. Well, the common ground has all been used up, post 60s. There is no common ground Left. Everytime the Conservatives compromise, new demands are made (just like the Arabs and Palestinian Muslims vis a vis the Israeli Jews).
The Left will never stop pushing more and more radically Left as they pursue their Utopian Vision, and eventually Conservatives will no longer compromise. An ustoppable force will meet an immovable object, and the fissures of society will continue to metasticize, and balkanize until Islam makes it explode.
That is where we are headed.
Enjoy the fruits of the 60s New Left.
At best we can get away with mass repatriations that are relatively peaceful, and Nuremburg style trials of Leftists and their aiders and abetters, in the treason towards the peoples (in the case of Europe "indigenous peoples").
Then we can move forward.
Unfortunately for minorities, the new zeitgeist will be less favorable for them, but they passed up the opportunity to support equality before the law and equal opportunity, in favor of Minority Privelege and Preferences over the majority.
The revitalized Euro Christian Culture will provide the backbone on with we can rebuild our Civilizatiotn.
I realized then and there that the problem of the problem is not merely a "Leftist" phenomenon.
This is true, but without the Left power structure (including the media and university) which continues to lay the indictment where we then go through the ritual shaming, we could move away from the Guilt Complex paradigm, and towards a more healthy place.
There is no doubt that post WW2, European Civilization was on its heals, full of self doubt and guilt.
The Left merely took full advantage of this...and they arent about to let their boot off the neck of the WhiteEuro Christian Male.
polymathblogger,
"they cannot imagine that any people so benighted and ignorant and backward as Muslims could every achieve enough power to seriously threaten them, so they don't see any problems with such a tactical alliance."
While this may be a factor, it is not the most important factor. For one thing, it imputes too much logic to the PC MC mind. Foremost in that mind is the mechanism of Reverse Racism. Since Muslims have become perceived by PC MC to be ethnic, Islam becomes a racial issue, regardless of whether its ideology and sociology are multi-racial or not.
The First Commandment of PC MC: Thou Shalt Never Blame Ethnic Peoples for their Acts or Culture.
The Second Commandment of PC MC: Thou Shalt Always Blame the White West for all pathologies in the West, and for all pathologies in the Third World.
The Third Commandment sheds light on why the first two are in place: Thou As a White Westerner Shalt Always Feel Shame for the Crimes Against Ethnic Peoples Which You Committed in History, and this Shame Should Make You Eternally Vigilant Against the Constant Potential You Have to Commit New Crimes Against Ethnic Peoples.
When we add to the mix that
1) Muslims are perceived by PC MC to be an Ethnic People (or a wonderfully diverse Rainbow of Ethnic Peoples)
and
2) of all ethnic peoples, Muslims are perpetrating the most violence and threatening violence in the name of Islam
-- we can see what the PC MC machine does. It takes the data of #2 and, instead of beginning to wonder why there is so much language of violence expressed, and actual violence perpetrated, by Muslims furthermore couched in terms of fanatical obsessions, it finds complex ways of excusing and justifying these pathologies in terms that ultimately blame processes for which the West is responsible. The PC MC machine actually feeds on negative data about Muslims: the more data we present to PC MC that indicates the pathologies of Islam, the more the PC MC machine is strengthened. It's a perverse, illogical, and circular system. While I agree with you that mere logic should be able to cure this, it more often does not, for two reasons:
a) the PC MC paradigm is logic-proof: it deploys methods that forever dance around the consequences of thinking things through logically, and given the many different items of data that constitute the problem of Islam, trying to persuade a PC MC can quickly become a very complicated and time-consuming affair, whereby one has to simultaneously juggle 100 different topics and subtopics and their related fallacies against a moving target who is all the while generating 100 new topics, subtopics and fallacies.
b) There is one datum we have no control over: Most Muslims are, apparently, not saying or doing anything bad. Our overall concern about Muslims in general, then, is a matter of dot-connecting inference, not smoking-gun data. While we may be convinced that the dots are sufficiently numerous and qualitatively persuasive for us to move from the "Tiny Minority of Extremists" to a sociologically systemic pathology, it becomes unusually difficult to translate that to the PC MC mind, which begins with a built-in prejudice against, and hyper-cautious resistance to, the direction of that inference.
Indeed Hesperado.
All violence or ugliness in a non Western culture are blamed on the West and Western actions. This blame inversion, blames the victim for the crime, and then searches for the root causes of that justified violence. Then if only we changed the evil ways of teh Westerner, the problem will dissolve.
This is the logic that drives Obama and the Left to condemn Israel, for standing in the way of peace. The simple fact that there is no peace, is Israel's fault, because Israel hasnt done what is necessary for peace obviously, for the simple reason that their is no peace.
In a sense, the Non White or Non Westerner has been infantilized and they are not responsible for their own actions, nor can they be blamed for any action that runs contrary to peace and human rights.
On the topic of the alliance between leftism and Islam, here is an interesting link about the Communists' role in the creation and support of jihadist groups. Marxists supporting Islamists
It is not actually surprising that LEFTISTS support Islamists, my remarks above were an attempt to explain why LIBERALS do. A different version of the explanation is that liberals always get controlled by leftists in the end because they fall for the temptation of thinking that having the correct opinions makes them morally superior to conservatives; once that fatal step is taken, they can no longer look at their own views critically and Leftists can push their emotional buttons.
One commenter referred to rhetoric that “tends to exclude and divide people”.
This reminds me very little of an axiom known as Barth’s Distinction. Its colloquial, and more humorous, form is:
There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't.
It’s stricter formulation reads:
Karl Barth once suggested ["Barth's Distinction"] that you can divide everyone into two groups:
Group 1: those who divide people into two groups.
Group 2: those who do not divide people into two groups.
The relevance of Barth’s Distinction will soon become apparent.
As far as I am concerned, this is a PC/MC formulation that derogates and demonizes a laudable human characteristic.
A sole question is left hanging in this matter: Is the exclusion and division being done arbitrarily or is there any degree of discernment involved?
The core issue here is that much maligned modern day bugbear known as [gasp!] “discrimination”. This one word has been so twisted and overwritten with ulterior motives and hidden agendas that it has almost been voided of its original and very important meaning.
dis•crim•i•na•tion
[dih-skrim-uh-neh-shuhn]
–noun
1. an act or instance of discriminating.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
3. the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic . something that serves to differentiate.
Please be sure to note how this online dictionary entry directly reflects the PC MC appropriation of this word. Its definition has been totally hijacked and wretchedly polarized in a manner that reflects the exact opposite of its true meaning.
Only in entries number three and four do the original and useful connotations of this word emerge even while being tagged as “Archaic”. It is why I did not immediately use this term and, instead, employed its far less tainted cousin, discernment.
As is so often the case, the PC MC mentality has commandeered this highly utile word and forced it into menial slave labor as a pejorative term. There are many parallels between this particular case and that of another Biblical saying which has also been usurped in the contemporary bleeding heart PC MC causes. In the words of John Duncan:
The most misquoted verse in the Bible is probably Matthew 7:1, "Judge not that ye be not judged."
If it is not already clear, the term that is so often meant when people misappropriate the word “discrimination” is “prejudice”.
John Duncan goes on to debunk the current abuse of “judgment” as well:
According to the Webster’s Dictionary, to judge means "to discern, to distinguish, to form an opinion, to compare facts or ideas, and perceive their agreement or disagreement, and thus to distinguish truth from falsehood." Therefore, when you say that your neighbor is a "good person," you are passing a judgment (forming an opinion) just as much as when you say that the thief is a "bad person." [emphasis added]
There’s that pesky term again, “to discern”. Please keep it in mind.
[continued]
In reality, there is absolutely nothing wrong with passing judgment on anything. It is a vital intellectual function that allows us to survive in situations such as:
Should I get into this car with a driver that is clearly intoxicated?
Should I cross this street in front a truck that is weaving recklessly through heavy traffic?
Do I reach into this poorly wired electrical junction box without first throwing the circuit breaker?
We make hundreds of judgments each day and live or die by them, often as not without even realizing it. There is nothing bad about being judgmental., just as there is nothing wrong about being discriminating.
In fact, if one considers the immense damage being done to rational minds by the ongoing PC MC campaign that distorts such crucial terms as “discrimination” and “judgment”, there emerges a truly insidious pattern of Liberal activism whose intent is wresting from individuals the entire decision-making process.
In comments at another thread, Hesperado referred to the “comfortably apolitical”. These un-opinioned, ultra-tolerant types can often be seen shrugging their shoulders as they say, “Who am I to judge?” With equal alacrity, they just as often will admonish, “Judge not lest ye be judged.” As if using one of mankind’s most valuable intellectual tools is some sort of sin.
Far more aberrant is how deeply this assault upon the individual has been allowed to go. It is not just personal judgment and discrimination that have been tarred but the human ego itself. Too often, people are told that the only good thing a person can do is something for someone else. Anything a person does for one’s self is wicked and “selfish”.
This attempt to debase the human spirit is most manifest in modern religion’s total distortion of altruism. Far too many of today’s faiths literally demand that their followers deliver up every benefit of the doubt, every care and concern regardless of the intended recipient’s own objectives or goals.
Thus do we repeatedly see modern Christian churches continue to defend Islam despite how Muslims around the world − while following Qur’anic doctrine to the letter − are killing Christians on a daily basis and declaring open war on the followers of Christ.
Yet, there are the constant reminders that we must not judge Muslims against the backdrop of terrorism and brutality which remains in perfect concord with the Qur’an that they all revere and live by.
Instead, those of us who take exception to being sanctimoniously denigrated as the sons of pigs, apes and dogs suddenly find our sense of judgment and ability to discern labeled as “RACIST!” Most obscene of all is how not just Muslims but those who purport to best represent Christian charity and forgiveness also join in the chorus of racist accusations. This, despite the fact that Islam is not a race in any way, shape or form.
[continued]
All of which brings us back to a root of this discussion:
oldschool26: I do not have the answers, but I know it starts to get better when we treat others with dignity and respect how they classify themselves. To label people is wrong in my book.
When people declare themselves as your undying enemies and the ardent destroyers of everything your own culture stands for, is it still prohibited to label them as such?
When Muslims seek to impose every imaginable indignity and boast of their intent to do so, is it depriving them of their dignity to label them as barbarians and tyrants?
Is there any valid reason to demand that Muslims − who’s most fundamental doctrine requires the abolition of Western culture, representative government and rule of law − be accorded every human right even as they then take those selfsame sacrosanct rights and weaponize them against us?
oldschool26, please face these last three questions squarely and answer them at your earliest opportunity.
oldschool wrote:
"It is not actually surprising that LEFTISTS support Islamists, my remarks above were an attempt to explain why LIBERALS do. A different version of the explanation is that liberals always get controlled by leftists in the end because they fall for the temptation of thinking that having the correct opinions makes them morally superior to conservatives..."
This indicates that oldschool considers himself neither a Leftist nor a liberal. And yet, one can see in many of his comments the symptoms of PC MC deformity. This leads us to the limitations of his comment above I quoted.
The problem of the problem (i.e., the secondary problem of why the West continues to be myopic to the primary problem of Islam) is not a problem merely of Leftism or liberalism. If it were limited to Leftism or liberalism, it would be a far smaller problem than it is. This secondary problem is direly problematic precisely because the majority of conservatives and centrists (along with that vast swath of Westerners who go happily along their way without thinking too much about politics at all) have become sincere believers in PC MC with regard to Islam.
This process did not happen because they were hoodwinked by some dastardly cabal of Gramscian Elites; nor because they are motivated by greed and knowingly collude with our evil enemies to line their pockets; nor because they have somehow become "globalists" in the past 50 years; nor because they are stupid sheep who let Leftists dictate the agenda.
I don't know the precise answer to the question why this process has occurred throughout the West. I do know that the answer must eliminate such conjectures as listed above. The answer must begin with the following premises:
1) the vast majority of Westerners -- ordinary folks and elites, left, center and right alike -- are more or less PC MC about Islam.
2) While there is variation of PC MC among Westerners, ultimately the variation all coalesces into a unified sentiment that detaches a bad Ism off of a putatively good Islam -- an "extremism" is hypothesized to explain all the pathologies we notice among Muslims worldwide and in their culture & tenets, in order to save the main trunk of Islam from condemnation and reserve respect (if not even praise as a "great religion of peace") for it.
The variations among PC MC Westerners in this regard only pertains to how big of a chunk of an "extremist" Ism off the main good trunk of Islam they are willing to recognize is rotten: thus, some PC MCs grudgingly concede that there is a rather large problem, but they limit it still with artificial constructions such as "Wahhabism" or "Salafism" precisely in order to leave the good normative Islam intact and off-limits to blame. Other PC MCs insist on narrowing the problem to a very "tiny minority of extremists".
3) And thirdly, it is very important to realize that the sentiments of PC MC do not derive from evil or insanity, but from reasonable and good principles which have grown out of the rich soil of Judaeo-Christian Graeco-Roman univeralism; and relatively speaking, most PC MCs throughout the West (i.e., the majority of Westerners) are decent and intelligent people. This good-natured complexion of PC MC, along with its vast representative demographic, is precisely what makes it so dominant, mainstream, and problematic.
The tendency among those in the anti-Islam movement to demonize those who persist in defending Muslims is not helping matters, and will tend to forestall the process by which together we will slowly but surely deconstruct the PC MC paradigm. That paradigm is not some evil Tower of Babel we must assail from without; it is an organic human sociological cosmion composed more or less of good people like ourselves, and the process of saving the baby from the bathwater will take time and patience.
(With apologies for all the mixed metaphors...)
Hesperado,
The comment about liberals and leftists was me, not oldschool, and (without disagreeing with your point that the problem of Western over-tolerance of Islam is not simply due to liberals and leftists) I stand by it as an explanation of why liberals always seem to end up being controlled by leftists.
polymath,
I agree that liberals have been deformed by Leftism. My point is that the larger problem has affected non-liberals as well, on the issue of Muslims. Time and time again, I have seen various flavors of conservatives who otherwise stand against liberals/Leftists on other issues, more or less agree with them on that one issue, even if some of them show signs of residual rationality.
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